September 17, 2021

Big Stone Gap

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.



Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
Fiction
2000 Random House
Read in September 2000
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

It's 1978, and Ave Maria Mulligan is the thirty-five-year-old self-proclaimed spinster of Big Stone Gap, a sleepy hamlet in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She's also the local pharmacist, the co-captain of the Rescue Squad, and the director of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, the town's long-running Outdoor Drama.

Ave Maria is content with her life of doing errands and negotiating small details--until she discovers a skeleton in her family's formerly tidy closet that completely unravels her quiet, conventional life. Suddenly, she finds herself juggling two marriage proposals, conducting a no-holds-barred family feud, planning a life-changing journey to the Old Country, and helping her best friend, the high-school band director, design a halftime show to dazzle Elizabeth Taylor, the violet-eyed Hollywood movie star who's coming through town on a campaign stump with her husband, senatorial candidate John Warner.

Filled with big-time eccentrics and small-town shenanigans, Big Stone Gap is a jewel box of original characters, including sexpot Bookmobile librarian Iva Lou Wade; Fleeta Mullins, the chain-smoking pharmacy cashier with a penchant for professional wrestling; the dashing visionary Theodore Tipton; Elmo Gaspar, the snake-handling preacher; Jack MacChesney, a coal-mining bachelor looking for true love; and Pearl Grimes, a shy mountain girl on the verge of a miraculous transformation.

Comic and compassionate, Big Stone Gap is is the story of a woman who thinks life has passed her by, only to learn that the best is yet to come.

My Original Thoughts (2000):

Pretty good. I had a tough time getting interested, but after a few chapters I was hooked. Lots of characters to keep track of. Some beautiful passages.

My Current Thoughts:

I vaguely remember this book and know I went on to read one or two of the sequels, but I no longer own a copy and I doubt I'd read it again. I wish I had written down some of those beautiful passages that I mentioned in my original notes. 

10 comments:

  1. This sounds good but I don't know if I'm willing to start a series right now.

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    1. Vicki, I think there are only four books in this series, so not too terribly long.

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  2. I find your looking back fascinating as when I read past reviews, I often wonder what I'd think of the book years later if I re-read it.

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    1. Helen, I've been keeping a reading journal since 1998 and it's been a lot of fun to share what I was reading all those years ago in these weekly posts. I'll eventually catch up to when I started blogging, but for now it's fun to look back and see what I was enthusiastic about and what were disappointments. My reading taste has changed quite a bit over the years!

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  3. I read this and a couple of her other books years ago. I remember them as mildly entertaining, but not something that I would reread. I'm enjoying your catch up book review posts, too!

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    1. Laurel, mildly entertaining is exactly how I'd describe Big Stone Gap. Glad you're enjoying these "Looking Back" posts. Thanks!

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  4. I think I should have read this back when I was living in Virginia .... seems a bit fun.

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    1. Susan, you might enjoy this series, especially if the setting is familiar. As Laurel commented, this is a mildly entertaining book.

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  5. I remember when this book was a big hit and now I wonder if I read it or just wanted to read it!

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    1. Iliana, it was pretty popular. I think there's even a movie based on the book.

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